I had the greatest night tonight in years. I can hardly remember the last time I felt such wonderousness as I felt tonight. It was a rare reasonably warm day that melted into a rare reasonably warm night. I smelled Summer in the air, a scent that has occurred so rarely that I can’t even remember when I smelled it this Summer. Tonight was the full moon, the night that should be celebrated as the Moon Festival and being thankful for good fortunes. I felt I wanted to celebrate in my own way and find a way to be close to the moon.
I took off on my bike this evening for the Marin Headlands, doubting that I’d actually go all the way there, because whatever distance you go on a bike you have to be aware that you have to go that same distance to get home. I figured at some point I’d realize that if I went any further, the return trip would be too daunting to continue and I’d probably end up somewhere like Twin Peaks to watch the moon.
But I went, listening to the New Radicals CD that I recently got, and which turned out to be a perfect soundtrack for the ride. I headed down Church St., following the J Church tracks, did the zig-zag through the Duboce triangle area into the Haight and through the Panhandle and into Golden Gate Park. I took the 10th Ave exit and cut all the way through the Richmond District to Lake Street, turned left and then right into the Presidio on 15th Ave.
It was absolutely gorgeous, but then it started becoming glorious. There was a section in the Presidio where there were no streetlights and tall redwoods overhanging and enclosing the road. I couldn’t see the road and I only knew where to go by the clearing up ahead lit up by moonlight. Not a soul in sight and I felt like I was flying through space.
I kept going, down Lincoln to the Golden Gate Bridge, to the catwalk where I had to go through a gate that they close after 9:00 except for bicycles. I crossed the bridge, pausing briefly to watch the moon and its reflection rippling on the bay and the San Francisco night skyline. Right when I got to Vista Point at the other end of the bridge, the CD ended. It was glorious.
I watched the moon from Vista Point for a short bit, but it wasn’t very satisfying. There were too many people, too many cars, too many cameras. It was too low, too far away from the moon. There was only one place to go from there, so I headed up into the darkness of the Headlands.
There were cars going up, but not many, not enough to be disturbing or distracting and my fears that it would be too dark to see the road were quickly allayed by the moon. All the roads were as clear as day and it was soothing to watch the shadow of my wheel spokes whizzing in the moonlight. Then at the final ascent, the road was closed to cars and from there I was completely alone. I got to the top of the Headlands, well, pretty darn close and the spread was unbelievable. And it was all mine and it was only me.
It was prayer and homage to the moon. It was being on the top of the world, it was being out of the world and looking at my life and what it has been. I used to live there and there and there. That’s Sutro Tower, I now live down the hill on the other side of it. There’s the entire stretch of Golden Gate Park; I ride that entire length to the ocean. Ocean Beach and the Seacliffs, stomping grounds? My whole life in the Bay Area was spread before my eyes.
The ride home was a little hard, but rewarding. I felt like I had touched something I hadn’t touched in a long time. It is a feeling that I love so much and it feels like I’m living my life for that feeling. It’s a feeling of vastness and being part of the entire universe. It’s almost always on Summer nights that I feel that. I wonder if it’s a feeling from a past life. Maybe like in the Japanese movie, “Afterlife”, you take one memory with you from this life into the afterlife.
Not a great movie, but I can take that basic concept and run with it. You can take a memory from this lifetime, but not into the “afterlife”, but into the next lifetime. Well, kinda the same thing. In the next lifetime, you’re always striving to touch that memory, that feeling, again. Perhaps it’s not the same stimulus that would trigger the feeling. But when you feel it, it resonates and you know it’s something much bigger than all that your life is.
That would also be a part of the “life is suffering” notion of Buddhism. Because the feeling is momentary, it’s like an intense deja vu that happens and then disappears without trace. When you have the feeling, you feel like you’ve attained something, but then it melts away into something you can’t even describe, much less share with other people. That to me is true suffering.
